Rawi Hage

Born in Beirut, Rawi Hage grew up in Lebanon and Cyprus. In 1991 he relocated to Montreal, where he studied Photography at Dawson College and Fine Arts at Concordia University. In addition to his work as a writer and a visual artist, Rawi spent time as a cab driver in Montreal. His debut novel, De Niro’s Game, won the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and the McAuslan First Book Prize, as well as being shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2006 Governor General’s Award for English fiction. His second novel, Cockroach, was published in 2008 and was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Award and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His newest novel, Beirut Hellfire Society will be published in August 2018.

Beirut Hellfire Society

Knopf

Beirut Hellfire Societyfollows Pavlov, a twenty-something son of an undertaker, who, after his father’s death, is approached by a member of the mysterious Hellfire Society – an anti-religious sect that, among their many rebellious and often salacious activities, arrange secret burial for those who have been denied it because the deceased was homosexual, atheist, or otherwise outcast and abandoned by their family, church and state.